


hands (did you know you hold my heart in yours?)

by postfixrevolution



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Morning After, Secret Relationship, these boys are emotional basket cases someone please help them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 23:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6446899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postfixrevolution/pseuds/postfixrevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A morning after, in which Takumi remains desperate to prove himself, Leo struggles to find balance between propriety and possessiveness, and they both have nothing to say to each other (except for every <i>i love you, don’t go</i> that they leave unsaid).</p>
            </blockquote>





	hands (did you know you hold my heart in yours?)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaburagi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaburagi/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY KABU I LOVE YOU YOU'RE GREAT NEVER CHANGE BECAUSE YOU'RE SWEET AND PERFECT AND AMAZING AND I'M GLAD I MET YOU (are you embarrassed yet i hope you're embarrassed ahaha)
> 
> Spell checked but unbeta-ed, for I am but a lazy writer (and it's 6am wow uM oops), so forgive any mistakes that may pop up, and enjoy~!

Takumi wakes up first, right before dawn, right before the sun starts its daily trek across the endless overhead blue and graces the shadow painted earth with its warm, golden arms. The air in Leo’s tent is rich, instilled with the sharp scent of parchment and ink, of familiar, heady magic; it’s so different from the air in Takumi’s own tent - tepid and subtle, the scent of bow polish and tatami mats with chrysanthemum tea spilled over them too many times to fully wash the aroma away. He blinks blearily, lets his tawny eyes adjust to the little pre-dawn light that diffuses through the canvas shell of the tent and into its interior. 

There is warmth pressed against him, bare skin against his back, and he thinks back to the previous night: creased brows and petulant frowns smoothed away by calloused fingers, by placating lips. The cool tang of metal buckles against his fingertips, followed by the sound of armor hitting the floor, then searingly hot skin under his palms. His cheeks burn at the thought, the ghost sensation of Leo’s willowy fingers in his hair, teasing and pulling at the strands with the voracity of a curious child, so unfamiliar with the feeling of long hair between his fingers. Takumi shakes the thought away as he shakes errant strands of hair from his face, blowing the rebellious bangs out of his vision with a soft puff. It is as the morning sun finally starts to illuminate the sky that the archer finally begins to shift, carefully untangling himself from twisted sheets and twisted limbs. 

He hears his companion’s shift in breathing before anything else, but the blond’s newfound wakefulness does little to deter him. Takumi pulls himself out of Leo’s hold carefully, forgoes the warmth of willowy arms and silky sheets for the crisp morning air as he sweeps fingers through his messy bangs, begins the arduous process of redressing for the day. He takes his time, knowing that his partner is slow to fully wake, always unwilling to open his earthen eyes until the sun is at least past the tips of the faraway trees, enough to illuminate every surface in the tent with a cream-canvas tinted light. 

The process is methodical, practiced and almost perfect, and Takumi is redoing the ties on his hair with he hears Leo shift, a bleary half-groan escaping his lips - the first loud noise he’s heard all morning. It’s not so much startling as it is a reminder; it is by this time every morning that he has to leave, slink back to his own tent as if he’d never left, tugging his collar a little higher over his throat to hide the purpling proof that his tent was empty last night, that the youngest price of Hoshido had stolen away to another’s dwelling for the night, tangled fingers in another’s hair and compared heartbeats to find that the pulses aligned, blending into one another in perfect sync. 

“I take it you’re leaving,” Leo eventually says. Sleep still clings to his voice, roughing it around the edges, slurring its usually mellifluous cadence with a stubborn fatigue. Even with his back to him, Takumi knows that earthen eyes are fixated on his fingers as he finishes the ties on his hair, makes sure he is only as perfectly presentable as possible. 

“I am,” Takumi responds, finally lowering his hands to his sides. He turns around to see Leo has stood by now, gathered his own clothes from the ground and began to pull them on. Tawny eyes linger for a second on the red marks over his collarbone, trace the line he knows his lips had followed from there to Leo’s own, still sticky with the taste of Nohrian wine last night - sweeter than Hoshidan and infinitely more addicting when it stains the sighs he breathes into his mouth, filling him up with dizziness,  _ desire _ . Takumi swallows, blinks the image out of his mind’s eye and turns away to let Leo change. “And I suppose you’ll be waiting a bit before leaving, too?”

A soft scoff. “Of course,” is his response. “Twenty-two minutes after, as always. Right about when the sensible risers begin to make their way out of their tents.”

Takumi doesn’t bite back his snort. “It’s more like twenty-two and a half minutes,” he tells the blond. “You always stop at your tent flap to go back and check your collar in the mirror.”

Leo turns his head away, clucks his tongue in annoyance. There is the beginnings of a crimson flush on his cheeks, washing over the tips of his ears, and Takumi fails to bite back a small snicker. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he dismisses eventually, turning to leave. “I’ll have your back on the battlefield.” The blond brings his earthen gaze back at that, takes in the archer’s fully dressed from, follows the crisp lines of his clothes and lets his eyes linger on the faded scars that he had traced just last night, with careful fingertips, greedy lips. Takumi swallows, shifts his weight from foot to foot. Earthen eyes find his own.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Leo tells him simply. Tawny eyes blink owlishly before that split second’s confusion gives rise to affront, and he splutters angrily.

“And you think that would stop me? Protecting you is  _ my _ choice--”

“And it is one that is completely unnecessary,” he interrupts, so annoyingly,  _ painfully _ calm. “I have my retainers, as you have yours. You don’t need to have my back.”

Takumi turns his head away, crosses his arms. “But what if I  _ want _ to have your back?” he mutters petulantly. Leo doesn’t respond right away and Takumi doesn’t turn to look at him. He doesn’t need to; he’s long since memorized the irritated curl of Leo’s fingers and the tight half-frown on his lips when met with something disagreeable, the slow intake of breath as he words his repartee, the flash of his earthen eyes when he speaks. Even his timing is accurate, and when the boy finally speaks, Takumi isn’t surprised.

“There are many things we want that we have to deny ourselves of, Prince Takumi.”

He snorts humorlessly. “The prodigal prince would say that, wouldn’t he?” he scoffs, and the bitterness is inseparable from his words. “You have want of  _ nothing _ , and yet here you are, saying the opposite.”

“You’re wrong,” Leo responds immediately. It’s the immediacy, the edge in his voice that causes Takumi to turn around, to meet harsh earthen eyes. His fingers are still curled into fists - so tight that his perfect nails must be digging into his palms, leaving crescents in the uncalloused surface of them - and there is a sharpness in his glare that makes his breath catch. 

“Prove it,” he whispers, stares Leo straight in the eyes. The Nohrian prince stares back, doesn’t let his gaze wander as he takes a step forward, wraps willowy fingers around Takumi’s left wrist. He stiffens, swallows down the pulse that has skyrocketed into his throat. 

“Are you not living proof?” he asks absently, trailing fingertips across the back of Takumi’s hand, curling them around his fingers and tugging them toward his mouth. His lips are soft - Takumi knows this,  _ he knows this _ \- but, pressed against the valleys of his knuckles they are something else altogether; the Hoshidan prince grits his teeth, swallows down the skyrocket of his pulse. Earthen eyes trail languidly up to meet tawny, lips never leaving the expanse of his knuckles, pressing themselves carefully against each rise and crevice. “Are you not the only thing the prodigal prince could claim to want?” Leo mutters, and his breath is wildfire across Takumi’s skin, setting every nerve ending alight with a crippling heat. The archer tears his hand away, takes a step back.

“Y-you’re changing the subject!” he accuses.

“You’re avoiding the question,” Leo repartees. 

Takumi clucks his tongue, crosses his arms. His counterpart mirrors the stance, arching a thin eyebrow in response.

“Don’t think you can stop me,” Takumi eventually replies. “From fighting for what matters to me.”

A pause. A sigh. “We have two kingdoms’ eyes on us, Prince Takumi. It’s not alright to throw caution to the wind for  _ my _ sake--”

“And you think I don’t know that,  _ Prince _ Leo?” Takumi exhales sharply, runs agitated fingers through his bangs. “Not everyone can be as regally apathetic as you can,” he says lowly. “If I care for someone, I make sure they are aware of it.”

“So jumping in front of arrows for me is how you plan on showing it, then?” Leo bites back humorlessly. “Leaping in front of tomes, taking lances through the chest in my stead?”

“What are you trying to imply?”

“I don’t need you to play the hero for me, Takumi!” Leo exclaims. The shout surprises the both of them, two sets of eyes growing wide. Earthen ones are the first to recover, lips twisting into an annoyed frown. Tawny eyes watch the transition carefully, following the harsh set of his shoulders, the tenseness in his jaw. He curls his own fingers into fists at his sides, rolls words around his tongue and waits for the right ones to appear. They never do. Takumi turns away.

“I’ve overstayed my welcome. I’ll be going, Prince Leo.”

No response. He holds back a sigh, walks forward tiredly. His fingers barely brush against the rough canvas of the tent’s exit when something stops him - a sharp tug at the back of his head, a quick pull at his hair. He whirls around testily.

Leo glares holes into the tent wall to the side of them, arms crossed and lips set into a deep scowl. Takumi feels his fingers curl into fists again, fingernails digging into his palms, feet shaking with the urge to tap their toes restlessly. People are doubtlessly beginning to mill about outside, and his time to escape unnoticed is quickly falling away. Annoyance with the blond remains at the forefront of his mind though, and Takumi can’t help the edge to his voice when he barks, “What?”

“Tch,” he starts softly. “I’m only going to say this once.”

“Then say it already!”

“Don’t go.”

His heart stops.

“Wh-- _ what _ ?”

“I’m not repeating it,” Leo intones. Earthen eyes finally flicker to his and there is fire in them, different than the one that alights his irises when they sit at at table with a chessboard between them, than the one that is illuminated only by candlelight in the dead of night, with pupils blown and fingers dizzily tracing over every old scar that litters his body. His heart stutters, trips directly into a full sprint, and Takumi can’t tell if it’s from terror or something else entirely. 

“Regally apathetic,” the blonde suddenly scoffs under his breath, cutting Takumi's personal musings off. “Do you truly think I see you take blows for me and feel nothing? Do you truly think I’m that heartless?”

Takumi winces at that, apologies forming immediately on his tongue. He never get to say them.

“Takumi.” Leo sighs, and it’s heavy - so painfully, tragically heavy. “You hold my heart in your hands. How can you fault me for not wanting to let such a person go?”

“Leo…”

The blond turns away, clucks his tongue dismissively.

“You’re right,” he says tiredly. “I’ve overstepped my boundaries, and you’ve overstayed your welcome. You’re free to go, Prince Takumi.”

Tawny eyes stare at Leo’s back, at the willowy set of shoulders whose silhouette he has long since committed to memory, with his eyes and hands both.  The other boy’s words still spin dizzily in his head, dancing along with his racing heart, his rushing blood, and he tries to find a place for them in the new reality that they have offered. Heart in his hands. Takumi glances at his hands, at his calloused archer's fingers and his scarred, sun-tanned palms. Against the other’s, his are a golden tone, hands so much rougher than that of the spell-casting prince, but Leo has never not taken his hands all the same each time, pressed his lips against each fingertip with that same glint in his earthen eyes, that same smirk on his lips. 

Takumi reaches forward, wraps calloused fingers around a willowy wrist. Leo stiffens.

“I’ve decided to stay,” he says airily, pulling the blond to face him. A small smirk of his own starts to form as he tugs soft fingers up to his mouth, presses his lips against the bony ridges of Leo’s knuckles. “Prince Leo still needs to put on his armor, and I think it’s best we look presentable before we find all our siblings for a long-awaited talk.”

**Author's Note:**

> gdi how do you even leokumi
> 
> collapses face first into my blankets but at least I hope Kabu is having a Good Birthday


End file.
